3 Burning Questions for The Last Ship S5 Ep5 – Warriors

Daley Review

6 years ago

The Last Ship 505 - Warriors - 4 heroes at a weird party

3 Big Questions…

That lead to more questions.

Last Week’s Questions Answered

Where did the bad guys’ battleship come from? No idea yet. She didn’t appear in this episode (“Warriors”), but we’ve been having some lively debate on Facebook about it. Last week, I was stuck on the idea that the radar read “Iowa” class. Now, I wonder if the radar might have defaulted to Iowa if it encountered something -roughly- that size / configuration.

What’s Kelsie’s connection to Tavo’s movement? She left no trail after killing Commander Granderson. Maybe she’ll show up in Colombia at some point and explain things to me (since I think I was the only interested)…

What happens when Nathan James puts in for repair? Replacing missing parts of an Arleigh Burke destroyer takes time. Our heroes have had stay busy while Nathan James gets back up to fighting shape. Also, it sounds like another ship, the Michener, has been made ready. We’ll see who takes command later. As for captaining Nathan James, both Slattery and Chandler walked the decks and checked on repairs. Kara was only seen onshore….

This Week’s Questions

Did this timeline-jumping episode feel more jumpy than necessary to anyone else?

I confess that this episode, directed by last season’s big-bad Dr. Vellek (Peter Weller), didn’t quite earn a complete thumbs-up from this reviewer. I ordinarily enjoy episodes when the editing jumps around a timeline. When done well, details get revealed at dramatic moments and the audience gasps in exhilaration. Not so much here. Instead, we just get gaps in the story which probably deserved some screen time. For example, the president says Chandler can’t lead the snatch and grab to Jamaica. Chandler clearly lead the mission. How? Did he just go without permission? Not likely. No way he’d be handing out orders and making plans once he brought the intel back if that were the case.

Another example: Ashley’s big beef with admiral Dad. They fought loudly and in a way which had Ashley ready to move out. She did what teenage girls do (at least stereotypical TV teenage girls) and went right for Chandler’s throat with her attacks. We could see the devastation on Chandler’s face and then Ashley just walks back upstairs after getting the last word. Next time we see the Family Chandler, it’s all hugs when the kids head back to St. Louis. Wha? We can assume that somehow things got smoothed out, but again, that’s a lot to assume. The argument was worth putting on screen, then we deserve to know how they resolved it.

Maybe it would have made more sense to move the war bonds party and Miller’s budding romance to another episode rather than truncate the episode’s A and B stories?

I guess that’s not a “burning question” as much as a “burning annoyance”.

The Last Ship 505 – Warriors – Carlton Burk (Jocko Sims) image by TNT copyright 2018

Is Miller about to die?

I know, that’s out of left field. Hear me out.

My wife has a TV rule. The moment you start to notice that a character has too much attention paid to them, that character is a goner. It applies most often to reality competition shows like “Project Runway” (her fave), but it works for scripted TV too. Miller provides a lot of the show’s limited comic relief and has had some character arc over the years. However, we’ve never had that much personal time with him. Now, all of the sudden, Miller befriends a rat and has a love interest? Please let my wife’s rule get proven wrong in this case! I’ve really grown to like Miller.

The Last Ship 505 – Warriors – Tom Chandler (Eric Dane) image by TNT copyright 2018

Was I the only one ooked out by the whole “Southern Women” scene?

Speaking of Miller’s new lady friend, I thought that whole event was just weird. This soirée took place before the mission, but when did Miller go back for a refill of sweet tea? Doesn’t matter, but it adds to the jumbled feeling I had all episode long. I digress. This out of place scene at least featured the missing Burk brother and provided our answer about how his 4th season injury turned out – amputation. The rest of it just weirded me out.

The four Nathan James warriors, Miller, Jeter, and the Brothers Burk, attended an old-time war bond party, meaning the government needs help paying for the war. This whole situation made a bunch of questions spring to mind. If 90% of everyone recently died, but the government survived, wouldn’t that government have inherited a LOAD of resources? Like, almost all of them? If not, then they could have nationalized (un-American, but these are trying times) pretty much anything they wanted during the plague(s) anyway. What does the military need to pay for if they theoretically have access to anything they want anyway? Labor costs to make the stuff they need? Maybe, but again, the big ticket stuff (carriers, ships, jets, subs, etc.) has been sitting idle for years and needs refit, not replacement.

Having this mindset, watching America’s new upper-class take out their checkbooks only after a few words from one of the heroes made me a little sick inside. Let’s just assume I’m entirely wrong about the first part (country has everything it needs, so why ask for money?). These people were perfectly agreeable to writing checks but required a dog and pony show to pull it out of them. It reminded me of the Hunger Games when Katniss had to go to a party in the capitol. Remember that scene? The one where the wealthy attendees take medicine to force themselves to puke just so they have room to eat more. Yeah. These folks, especially Edmond and his enlistment-preventing knees, reminded me of that over-the-top representation of wealth and privilege.

Am I alone in this?